Using a multimodal socio-semiotic framework(Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010), this paper examines the terrorist campaign of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and its impact on the people of the region. The terrorists have bee...Using a multimodal socio-semiotic framework(Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010), this paper examines the terrorist campaign of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and its impact on the people of the region. The terrorists have been shown to deploy physical weapons like knives and firearms, along with psychological ones like multimodal socio-semiotic propaganda to target society, both materially and psychologically. Their ultimate psychological weapon is death, encoded in multimodal signs(Kress, 2010). The targeted society tends to respond to that prompt of death with fear, which in turn serves as another prompt to various attitudinal, conceptual, and practical changes within that society. The overall socio-semiotic link between terrorist campaigns and social control rests on that major terrorist prompt of death, and fear remains the dominant social response(Van Leeuwen, 2005). The moment the targeted society ceases to recognize that prompt, or that prompt loses its intended social responsive value, terrorism in that society will not continue to survive.展开更多
In this paper, I propose an overall model of the semantic and semiotic functions of money and capital forms, based on an ecological view of human activity and a theory of the origin of money(coined precious metals). T...In this paper, I propose an overall model of the semantic and semiotic functions of money and capital forms, based on an ecological view of human activity and a theory of the origin of money(coined precious metals). The meaning of money is replaced in a structured human perspective, and a critical discussion is outlined on the grounds of the material and capital flows and functions identified. The madness of money follows from the separation of economy and ecology. That madness causes serious damage, especially under certain circumstances that the structural analysis can identify. Finally I add some new considerations on the psycho-semiotic implications of the analysis. The societal structure discussed can be interpreted in terms that have strikingly direct correspondence to those describing semiotic aspects of language and the human psyché, where the concepts of meaning and madness are immediately pertinent.展开更多
文摘Using a multimodal socio-semiotic framework(Bezemer & Jewitt, 2010), this paper examines the terrorist campaign of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria and its impact on the people of the region. The terrorists have been shown to deploy physical weapons like knives and firearms, along with psychological ones like multimodal socio-semiotic propaganda to target society, both materially and psychologically. Their ultimate psychological weapon is death, encoded in multimodal signs(Kress, 2010). The targeted society tends to respond to that prompt of death with fear, which in turn serves as another prompt to various attitudinal, conceptual, and practical changes within that society. The overall socio-semiotic link between terrorist campaigns and social control rests on that major terrorist prompt of death, and fear remains the dominant social response(Van Leeuwen, 2005). The moment the targeted society ceases to recognize that prompt, or that prompt loses its intended social responsive value, terrorism in that society will not continue to survive.
文摘In this paper, I propose an overall model of the semantic and semiotic functions of money and capital forms, based on an ecological view of human activity and a theory of the origin of money(coined precious metals). The meaning of money is replaced in a structured human perspective, and a critical discussion is outlined on the grounds of the material and capital flows and functions identified. The madness of money follows from the separation of economy and ecology. That madness causes serious damage, especially under certain circumstances that the structural analysis can identify. Finally I add some new considerations on the psycho-semiotic implications of the analysis. The societal structure discussed can be interpreted in terms that have strikingly direct correspondence to those describing semiotic aspects of language and the human psyché, where the concepts of meaning and madness are immediately pertinent.
